Langa may be gone, but his Mandela qualities must live on

When somebody dies, human beings are prone to say wonderful things about them, often embellishing the person's character. A gangster becomes a saint, a serial adulterer becomes a sound family man, a shady businessman becomes an intrepid entrepreneur and a corrupt politician becomes a model citizen.

It was gratifying, in the wake of former Chief Justice Pius Langa's death, that all the good and wonderful things said of him were true. In obituaries and tributes, people tripped over each other in the rush to heap praise on him. There was no need for embellishment.

In recent years, particularly in recent months, there has been a lot of reflection on the life of Nelson Mandela as the world prepares for his inevitable passage into the next world. These reflections have characterised Mandela as one of a kind, an extraordinary person whose life is almost impossible to emulate.

Yet, at the Langa funeral you had to realise that there were, and are, other Mandelas in our midst. We just have to appreciate them while they live and drink from their wells.

Langa was one such Mandela. Advocate Marumo Moerane captured him best when he described him as "incorruptible, honest and principled".

There were interwoven Mandela qualities that shone through in the eulogies and they will be part of the legacy that he left us. One of these was adherence to principle and the ability to separate personal pain from the bigger picture.

The story of the death of Langa's brother, which has been told on these pages and was highlighted by President Jacob Zuma in his eulogy, is one that should be taught in schools and universities about what constitutes greatness.

It relates to the assassination of Ben Langa, an Umkhonto weSizwe operative, at the hands of an ANC unit in the 1980s. Ben Langa and the ANC had been victims of a sophisticated security police plot to get rid of a key MK operative by getting his own comrades to kill him. False intelligence was given to the ANC that Ben Langa was a police informant who had infiltrated ANC structures and compromised sensitive underground operations. A hit squad was sent to kill him. Two members of that squad were almost immediately apprehended by the police, who obviously knew of their mission. They were sentenced to death.

Putting aside his personal pain and betrayal by the ANC, Langa campaigned against their execution. No one - especially not the state - had the right to take the life of a human being, was Langa's belief. The campaign was unsuccessful and the two men were hanged in 1986.

In campaigning for them, Langa demonstrated key Mandela qualities of forgiveness and adherence to principle.

Another Mandela quality, acknowledged by Zuma, was Langa's wisdom. Zuma spent time talking about Langa's role in defusing an ugly standoff between the ANC and the media about the regulation of the industry. The Press Freedom Commission, which was initiated by the print industry and which he chaired, delivered one of the most advanced media-regulation systems in the world, and South Africa thus avoided a scenario in which the state would have had a hand in regulating the media.

Speaking about this at the funeral, Zuma had this to say: "Due to a progressive outcome of the investigation, helped in part by the fact that the commission was chaired by a seasoned judge and a man who had helped to craft the very constitution that enshrines press freedom, the ANC dropped its demand for the establishment of a media tribunal."

Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng summed up a great Langa legacy that he himself would find hard to outdo. He spoke of Langa's scrupulous commitment to independence from power-brokers and institutions.

Speaking directly to cabinet ministers and other senior politicians in the front rows, Mogoeng stated that he would maintain the culture of judicial independence that he had inherited from his mentor. Succumbing to any outside influences would be tantamount to corruption - and corruption was something Langa detested, he said.

"If you are beholden to the executive, media or opposition, you are a corrupt judge," he told mourners.

Some might have dismissed his statement as mere rhetoric, coming from a man who needs to prove to a sceptical public that he was the right choice for a job that should have gone to a more seasoned jurist. But it was important that he make the commitment in front of Langa's coffin and with some of the constitution's doubters - including the head of state - listening attentively.

His message was that, even with Langa gone, the basic tenets of our republic should never be corrupted - which is what should inform our attitude as we look beyond the life of our greatest citizen.